


Awake at the Worst Possible Hour

by DragonintheLibrary



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Go to bed Sherlock, Late night violin playing, M/M, deductions are sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonintheLibrary/pseuds/DragonintheLibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John groans and scrubs his hand over his face, “You’re impossible, Sherlock.”<br/>Sherlock draws his bow away from his violin with a swishy flourish, turns around to look at John and draws himself up to his full height.  “No,” Sherlock says with a grin, “just highly improbable.”<br/>He starts playing again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake at the Worst Possible Hour

John’s eyes blink open. The room is dark except for the red glow of his alarm clock: 04:17. John’s eyes burn slightly. He’s only been asleep for two hours, which is not nearly enough, not after the last few days they’ve had. Sherlock is playing the violin.  
John breathes deeply. Usually he doesn’t mind being woken by Sherlock’s playing, even at four in the morning. But John has had precious little sleep this week and he knows that Sherlock has had even less. John exhales and rolls out of bed. He picks his dressing gown up from the back of his desk chair and wraps it around himself.  
John walks down the stairs slowly. Sherlock is playing something complex, which means Sherlock is pleased with himself. Well, no mystery there; Sherlock solved the case. Of course he’s pleased. It probably won’t last until morning, but for the time being Sherlock will still be riding the last dregs of the high from solving the case.  
John squints against the light as he enters the sitting room. Sherlock is standing facing the windows, with his violin on his shoulder. He always stands there when he plays. John wonders if Sherlock likes to watch the comings and goings of Baker Street while he’s playing, still observing and still gathering information. That would be just like Sherlock. John also wonders if Sherlock just doesn’t want to look at other people while he’s playing. Perhaps playing the violin is a kind of emotional vulnerability for Sherlock, and making eye contact with someone else would be too intimate. John has no evidence to support this supposition, but he still _feels_ it might be accurate.  
“Ah, good. You’re awake,” Sherlock says, his bow stilling. “I never had my post case tea.” He starts playing again.  
John groans and scrubs his hand over his face, “You’re impossible, Sherlock.”  
Sherlock draws his bow away from his violin with a swishy flourish, turns around to look at John and draws himself up to his full height. “No,” Sherlock says with a grin, “just highly improbable.”  
John frowns to conceal the smile that seems determined to take up residence on his face. “Sherlock… bit not good.”  
“Mmmm,” Sherlock rumbles. His eyes flick across John’s body. John watches Sherlock’s face as his eyes dart back and forth, gathering information from John’s person. John watches the muscles in Sherlock’s face twitch rapidly through several expressions as he organizes his observations into a narrative of facts. John loves to watch Sherlock’s face as he gathers information for his amazing deductions. John loves the moment of anticipation before Sherlock begins to speak, because he knows that Sherlock will say something extraordinary and it is in these spare moments that the incredible thing is forming in Sherlock’s mind before it comes out of his mouth. John especially loves when Sherlock is deducing him, because he can see Sherlock’s facial expression so exquisitely well when he is the subject of Sherlock’s attention.  
Sherlock opens his mouth. A spark runs up John’s spine.  
“You don’t really mean that. You’re trying to suppress a smile. You think my ego is too large so you’re pretending to be cross with me, but you’re really just amused. And you agree with me: I am improbable.”  
“Arrogant bastard,” John says, but he’s no longer trying to suppress his smile. And Sherlock’s smiling back at him. They’re grinning at each other like idiots. _It must be the exhaustion_ , John thinks. _Otherwise we would never smile at each other for this long. We would never_ look _at each other for this long._  
With this in mind, John opens his mouth and says, “Go to bed, Sherlock.”  
Sherlock’s eyebrows quirk and he cocks his head. “Hmmmm,” he rumbles again, and John thinks he can feel the vibrations from that hum through the soles of his feet. Or perhaps he can feel Sherlock’s hum vibrating in his bones. Had they always been standing so closely together?  
Sherlock stoops to rest his violin in the open case on the floor, but his eyes do not leave John’s face. Sherlock stands up, but he does not stretch up to his full height, he stays a bit stooped, closer to John. “Interesting choice of words, Doctor Watson,” Sherlock says very quietly, but enunciating quite clearly. “You could have told me to go to sleep, but you told me to go to bed.” John doesn’t think he has ever heard Sherlock’s voice quite so low-pitched before. “Rather telling, don’t you think?”  
John can feel the smile on his face wither until it is only a dried-up wisp of a smile. They never talk about this. Sherlock, who sees everything and says everything he sees, has kept quiet on this one topic.  
“Oh, so we’re talking about this now?” John says. “I thought you were ignoring the fact that I fancy you and I was ignoring the fact that you know that I fancy you.”  
“I’m tired of that,” Sherlock says.  
“Alright,” John says. “So what’s the new plan? Are you going to mention aloud every time I wish I could take you to bed? Won’t that get dull pretty quickly? I mean, it’ll be more interesting when you do it in front of Sally and she pokes fun at me, but then Anderson will get wind of it and you hate everything Anderson says, even if he’s poking fun at me.”  
“No,” Sherlock says. John is close enough to see that Sherlock’s eyes are blue. He can usually only see that they are pale. “The new plan is that every time you want to take me to bed, I will notice it aloud, or you can notice it aloud. And then you will take me to bed. We can come up with some sort of code to use when we’re at crime scenes, because, as you say, idiots poking fun at you is incredibly tedious. And then when we get home from the crime scene you will take me to bed. Preferably my bed, as it is larger.”  
John has no idea what to say. He has no idea what to think or feel. John blinks at Sherlock.  
“Well?” Sherlock asks. “Are the terms of the new plan agreeable to you?”  
“I… err…” John says. “Sherlock?”  
“Yes, John?”  
“Are you poking fun at me?”  
“No, John. I assure you, I am completely serious. I want to have sex with you, as long as you actually want to have sex with me and not just continue fantasizing about it, which I would understand. Just because a person has sexual desires does not mean they want to act on those sexual desires.”  
“Oh,” John says.  
“So?” Sherlock asks.  
“Hmm?”  
“What do you think of the plan?” Sherlock insists.  
“Yes!” John says. “I think yes!”  
Sherlock grins at John and John grins right back. They’re standing so close together.  
“Can I kiss you?” John asks.  
“I wish you would,” Sherlock says.  
John stretches up, but not very far because Sherlock is already leaning down, and presses his mouth against Sherlock’s.  
 _It must be the exhaustion_ , John thinks. _I have clearly been seriously underrating sleep-deprivation. Four in the morning is a bloody brilliant time of day._

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, the title is a Rives reference! Thanks for noticing. :] https://www.ted.com/talks/rives_on_4_a_m  
> Thanks to my priest, for beta reading this. If she had an AO3 account, I would link to it. (You wish your priest talked fan fiction with you.)  
> I don’t think I stole the “you’re impossible” / “no, I’m just improbable” exchange from someone, but I might have done. If I did, I don’t remember whom I stole it from. If those lines are yours, dear reader, my sincere apologies. They are excellent lines. Please consider this fic a form of flattery.


End file.
